Editor

PLURAL+ 2010 winners were announced during the Awards Ceremony at the Paley Center for Media


On Friday November 12, a crowd of nearly 200 gathered at the Paley Center for Media in New York City to honor the winners of the 2010 PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival. A joint program of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and the International Organization for Migration, PLURAL+ provides a platform for young people globally, ages nine to 25, to share their personal experiences, views, questions and hopes regarding issues such as migration, cultural polarization and identity.

Video shorts (one to five minutes in length) arrived from more than 40 countries this year representing a range of topics including: the plight of youth refugees in Austria; the life of Roma girls in Slovenia; migrants’ rights in Ecuador; and a child's vision for a more inclusive India.

This year’s International Jury Award Winners were Aarohi Mahesh Mehendale (Ages 9-12) of India, Martina Hudorovic (Ages 13-17) of Slovenia, and Sebastian Kraner (Ages 18-25) of Austria. Both Mehendale and Kraner were in attendance to receive their awards as well as Ryan Tan Chuan Min of Malaysia, who received the PLURAL+ Paley Center Media Education Award, and Rebeca Cueva Rodriguez of Yupanas Foundation, RED NNACE Project, who accepted the PLURAL+ Roots and Routes Award on behalf of Ecuadorian filmmaker Maria Jose Vargas. Eleven other films were also screened that evening and received various awards from PLURAL+ partners.

The ceremony was emceed by U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy/ Hip-Hop Ambassador George “Rithm” Martinez. Distinguished guests and presenters included Marc Scheuer, director of the UNAOC; Michele Klein Solomon, Permanent Observer to the United Nations for the International Organization for Migration; Diane Lewis, Vice President of Public Affairs and Programs at the Paley Center for Media; Chaim Lifteski, Chief, Television Section, Radio and Television Service UN; Tey Cottingham, Head of Education and Institutional Markets at the National Film Board of Canada; and Karen Cirillo, Executive Producer, Children’s Broadcasting Initiatives at UNICEF.

The winning videos will be packaged into the PLURAL+ 2010 Program to be broadcast and presented at a number of international conferences, film and video festivals. To view the winning videos or learn more about PLURAL+ please visit the website at http://www.unaoc.org/pluralplus/

PLURAL + is a collaboration with 27 other organizations, including United Nations TV, CHINH India, UNICEF, BaKaFORUM, UNESCO Audio-Visual E-Platform, Anna Lindh Foundation, Center for Migration Studies of New York, Cine y Salud Spain, AlJadeed TV, COPEAM, Royal Film Commission of Jordan, Fundacio Forum Universal Cultures, International Year of Youth, Media Education Center of Belgrade, NEXOSAlianza , Respect Magazine, Paley Center for Media, RedUNIAL, Roots & Routes, Without Borders Film Festival, SIGNIS, Sunchild Environmental Festival, Turkish Cultural Center of New York, and Waging Non Violence. This year PLURAL + is also partnering with dotSUB which will allow all awarded videos to be subtitled real time on the Internet.

The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations aims to bridge the world’s divides and to build trust and understanding across cultures and communities worldwide through a variety of initiatives. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) acts together with its partners in the international community to uphold the human dignity and well-being of migrants; encourage social and economic development through migration; assist in meeting the growing operational challenges of migration management, and advance understanding of migration issues.